DWELLING [revised]

Strolling through these woods, I've chanced to dwell

upon the mouth of this long-abandoned

well. The boards its former owner must have

placed across the hole to keep stray animals

from falling in have rotted, gone to ground;

the stones that ring the lip are so moss-crusted

you can barely see them; a dump of rusted

cans and antique bottles surrounding the well

has sprawled and overflows onto the drowned

carcasses below. Fireweed's abundance

hereabout suggests the homestead's fate, animals

screaming as ember-jewelled rafters cave

in on them. Or not. It may be that I crave

high drama to explain the blown and busted

beauty of this plot. We are the only animals

seeking answers, building myths, raising dual

options. Making errors. What is it in abandoned

land, a refuse heap and a hole in the ground

sends my idle mind winding circles round

itself? Why not just wander on and leave

off speculation? Because abandoning

the understory to fungus and wild mustard

makes the deaths of those domestic animals

mean nothing, turns the history of their dwelling

here to dust. Out of every thing there wells

some essence, each dug hole and heaped mound

tells something of its labour, no animal

is separate from its heritage, so shave

away the surface of the piece of land on

which you stand and you'll find all the mustered

spirit matter of its clumped and clustered

self pulsing signals: activated nerve cells

messaging a brain. No land is abandoned

so long as someone somewhere saves

an image of it in her mind; no animal's

life ends when its bones are buried in the ground.

Time comes to abandon this idyll and heave

off for the green and rust-red concession I've dwelled

upon since birth. Animal smells, a well, tilled ground.